COMPULSION

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 71, 22 September 1919, Page 8

COMPULSION

SUBSCRIPTION TO WAR LOAN

WHO IS LIABLE?

Some anxiety was caused in the oifcy by the free circulation of a circular containing the following sentence : "Under the Finance Act of 1918, every person who is liable to pay income or land tax is under legal obligation to subscribe at least nine times (not three times) the average annual income and land tax paid [by him for the three years ending [ March, 1918." j This has necessarily caused some confusion. The compulsory subscription to war_ loans came under operation under | section 40, sub-section. 1 of the Finance j Act of 1917, from which the following ■ extract is made : "Subject to the pro- | visions of this section, it shall be the I duty of every tax-payer, whose taxable j income for the income year ended on the twenty-first day of March nineteen hundred and sixteen, wa3 not less than seven hundred pounds, td subscribe to the loan authorised to be raised under the War Purposes Loan Act, 1917, an amount equal to three times the total amount of land-tax and income-tax for which he is liable under the Finance Act, 1916." APPEALS. Provision was made that no obligation, to subscribe to that loan would be enforceable unless and until notice to subscribe had been served by the Commissioner of Taxes. Provision was also made under that section for appealing from the decision of the Commissioner, a special board being set' up for the purpose, and subsequently, provision was made for appealing from that board to a Judge of the Supreme Court sitting in Chambers. In the 1917 Act there was a sub-sec-tion, too, reading: "If on the hearing of an appeal under this section it is proved to the satisfaction of the hoard that the appellant has subscribed to any war fund, or other patriotic fund in connection with the war, there shall be deducted the amount'of such subscription, or the total amount of all subscriptions from the amount which the appellant is obliged to subscribe to the war purposes loan under this section." By the Finance Act of 1917 the £700 limit goes, likewise the right to plead subscriptions to patriotic funds as above referred- to. Instead, the obligation is made general, with no limit as to income above the £300 taxable ]me, and no account is to be taken of subscriptions to patriotic funds. The section (16 sub-section 2) reads : "The amount which any person may be required to contribute to the . War Purposes Loan shall not exceed six times the yearly average of the land tax and income tax (exclusive of excess-profits duty), paid or payable by him for the three years ended on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and eighteen." But in section 28, subsection 2, of the Finance Act (No. 2), 1918, in respect to a war purposes loan of £10,0,00,000 it is expressly stated: "The amount which any person may be required to contribute to the war-purposes loan shall not exceed three times the yearly average of the land tax and income tax (exclusive of excess profits duty) paid or payable by him for the three years ended on the 31st day of March, 1918." LIABILITY. Those who could have subscribed to the last war loan and did not are liable for subscriptions up to six 'I'mes their land tax and income tax, and are also liable to subscribe three times their land tax and income tax to this present £10,000,000 loan now before the public. Confusion.m^y have arisen out of the combination of these two liabilities, but it is not accurate to say that "under the linance Act of 1918 every person who is liable to pay income and land tax is under legal obligation to subscribe at least nine times the average income and land tax paid by him for the three years ending March, 1918." That there is uncertainty on the subject of who must subscribe to the £10,000,000 "Victory" Loan, and how much must be taken up by individuals, is evident frpm the torrent of correspondence on. the matter that pours daily into the office of the Commissioner of Taxes; ' also the steady stream of callers with problems to be solved all day ■ during i office hours. But The Post is authorised to state that any information required on the subject of compulsory subscription to the loan will be readily furnished by the officers of the Land and Income Tax Department.